From the Archives: 2010

Written by Will Smith

Being the middle of five children in a very impoverished family in Portland, OR, I looked all my life for the love I felt I missed. All five of us kids looked for love and acceptance.

Turbulent Life

After a violent divorce between my mother and father, my father took my brother and me to live with him. He couldn’t handle us, so he took us to our grandmother who lived in Snow Camp, NC. She was given custody of me and my four siblings. Not long afterwards, my mother picked us up and told us we were going camping, but, in fact, she took us to Oregon to live with her and her alcoholic boyfriend. I never saw my father again until I was in my 20’s.

When he finally found me, he told me he’d never stopped looking for me. At 5 years old, my siblings and I were living with my mother and alcoholic stepfather. As I grew a bit older, I began running with a bad crowd breaking into cars and worse. At 13, I was arrested and charged with four felony counts and was facing 22 years in prison.

Life-Changing Advice

After doing 500 hundred community service hours and 2 years of probation, my uncle stepped in and took me into his home. Although he was an agnostic, he gave me some advice that has stuck with me all my life: I can do anything I want to do.

Eventually, I had to move back in with my mother and her abusive husband. I was a street-wise kid at 15 years old searching for love. I thought I found it in girls, marijuana, and alcohol. It didn’t take long to see that I couldn’t live with my mother.

I remembered what my uncle, a very positive and moral man, told me. I realized that I could control what I did. I went from failing in high school to making the A-honor roll.

After leaving home to live with some friends for a couple of months, my mom’s husband came to tell me that she was dying of ovarian cancer. When Mom died, the family I was living with invited me to go to church with them.

Not Worthy of Forgiveness

At that time, I hadn’t been to church since I was a kid. When the altar call came, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. He told me to go forward, and I told Him that I wasn’t worthy of going forward due to the sin in my life.

It was soon after that I decided to join the Navy. While being in the military, I basically focused on myself. I went to college, lifted weights, and was totally self-absorbed.

While on leave in Oregon about two years later, I had a bad Jeep wreck that almost took my life and the life of my best friend. I still bear the scar across my forehead of that terrible wreck. Even that near-death experience didn’t cause me to change my life.

Gift of the Bible Brings Hope, Redemption

After my recovery, I returned to the Navy and was stationed in the Philippines. As I was leaving one command to transfer to another, a young Navy man handed me a Gideon Bible. I laughed at him and smartly asked what he wanted me to do with it. He told me that I might need it one day.

A period of time passed after I received that Bible, and I wanted to leave the ship for a while to go party with some friends when I realized all my friends had gone back out to sea. I went back to my room to take a shower, and, when I opened my bag, I saw the Gideon Bible.

I opened it to the book of Matthew and started reading Jesus’ words, the ones written in red. The Holy Spirit convicted me at that moment of my need for Jesus Christ.

When I got to my command in Florida from the Philippines, I had stopped partying but I didn’t know what to do. Another young Sailor came up to me on the street and said “let me tell you about Jesus.” Shortly thereafter I was saved, joined a Baptist church, was baptized and started discipleship training. A few years ago, the LORD led me and my family to Ashe County to live.

Love Can Only Be Found In Jesus

All those years I was searching for a love in this world that I could only find in Jesus Christ. I now teach the youth at Big Flatts Baptist Church. I recently announced my call into the ministry and have been invited to become a member of the Gideons, something I asked the LORD for many years ago.

I think everyone’s story is pretty much the same. Everyone is looking for the love that can only be found in Jesus. Only one thing can make anyone truly happy. It’s filling the void in their lives with Jesus Christ.

My life verse is, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” I know, now, that I can’t do anything without Jesus.